The Two-Headed Serpent - Initial Impressions and Bolivia

Following my post on Pulp Cthulhu it's time to crack into the review of the Two-Headed Serpent campaign.

The following is a review of the Bolivia chapter of the Pulp Cthulhu campaign The Two-Headed Serpent (Chaosium: 2017) based on actual play. I intend to review each chapter of this epic campaign as we play through it, highlighting what I see as strengths and weaknesses, and providing some suggestions along the way for what I’d do differently if running it again. Spoilers follow, so don’t read on if you ever plan to play in this Pulp Cthulhu campaign.

Initial Impressions

The book is beautiful, with high-quality art and maps throughout. It is well supported in PDF form with a Keeper Resource pack that includes pre-generated characters, and compiled references and handouts.

Several appendices in the book offer details of key NPCs, monsters and weird science that feature in the campaign. The backstory is interesting (if somewhat convoluted) and well detailed in the opening pages. While there is a definite twist in the plot arc, the campaign anticipates that the investigators may choose different ways to engage with the scenario, and offers different entry points for each chapter to reflect this. There are also notes from the playtest session sprinkled across the book, which can be interesting and insightful.

Overall these factors given the campaign the feel of a modern, well resolved, set of linked scenarios which will be entertaining for players and keeper alike. Unsurprisingly, the Two Headed Serpent was nominated for an Origins and ENnie Award. But how does it play in practice? 

Chapter One - Bolivia

There’s a lot to like about the opening chapter of the campaign which drops the characters into Bolivia and straight into the action. Setting the scenario in the ‘Green Hell’ of the Chaco War and allows groups to explore an interesting piece of history in an evocative setting. There are some great set-piece scenes and the scenario has a nice tempo, with the action increasing in intensity right through until the end.

Starting out as it means to go on, the campaign begins in-media-res; interrupting an NPC mid-sentence with a shot to the head, then jumping straight into a combat sequence as the investigators are ambushed! This is a nice touch that sets the tone well and allows the players to introduce their characters in an exciting and dramatic way.

However, there are also a few drawbacks to this approach. As written, the characters must learn about the true purpose for their presence in Bolivia (and what to do next) by rifling through the papers of the deceased Dr. Ursini and then checking in with headquarters via a portable radio. If they do neither of these things the Keeper has a major problem, and there’s no scripted options to get things back on track. Successful Idea rolls could bridge this gap, but I feel this is an inelegant solution where there’s no reason the plot couldn’t accommodate a more robust option.

This could be solved by dispensing with the radio, and bringing one of the characters into the second tier of Caduceus in advance of the commencing of the campaign and providing them with the orientation package and a briefing for the scenario so they can pick things up to ensure the mission is completed. This has the added advantage of reducing the narrative burden on the Keeper and allowing any doubts and reservations that the character may have to be roleplayed across the table by the investigators.

The remainder of the scenario revolves around three main scenes; the aid camp, the stone wards and the temple of the dreamer, which is ‘unlocked’ only when the investigators have deduced the purpose of the wards and opened a second of them. There’s also an entertaining encounter with a monkey toting a flame pistol.

The description of the aid camp provides some details of the key NPCs who are Caduceus employees, a local hero and details the uneasy presence of the soldiers who are occupying the camp. The scenario includes some local history that relates to the temple of the dreamer, and an associated festival, along with some guidance about how the soldiers are likely to react to the investigators. However as an "opportunity for roleplaying and investigation" ascribed by the scenario there is little here to detail the circumstances of those seeking aid, the impact of the war, or other dramatic opportunities for the investigators to help out. Such details must be supplied by the Keeper.

For me this seems like an opportunity lost. Setting the scenario amidst the Chaco War might have allowed the authors to explore some of the themes of this conflict, through the plight of the refugees. This could have been achieved through detailing the stories of some of the refugees, and perhaps having tensions within the camp linked to the conflict. 

I also feel like the role of the soldiers – who are magically brainwashed by the Inner Night operatives - could have been more thoughtfully addressed. As written, they function as little more than mooks to support the inner-night and make the combat sequences more challenging and ensure the investigators have a good supply of shotguns.

After being ambushed in the jungle, it seems fairly likely that the investigators will also assume the soldiers at the camp are enemies and carry the fight on to them immediately. This has the potential to remove the role of the roving patrol to participate in the climax of the scenario. It’s also not immediately clear why, if they are willing to tolerate the presence of the Caduceus doctors a the aid camp, the soldiers would attack the supply column in the opening scene of the scenario.

If I were to run this again I would give this a slightly different treatment to highlight the more insidious and parasitic aspects of the serpent people’s interaction with the humans they consider so inferior.

• Rather than being ambushed initially, the investigators would first encounter the battle scene and the first ward The formless spawn would attack quickly, killing Dr.Ursini mid-sentence as scripted giving the high-action opening.
• Whether the investigators flee or defeat the spawn, they would seek refuge at the camp. Here they encounter the soldiers – but rather than being enemies from the outset, they might be more ambivalent. Perhaps they may even offer to supply the investigators with explosives to defeat the monster. Amidst their number is the disguised Karnassh who pretends to have suffered some facial wounds in a previous battle to conceal his imperfect disguise. 
• As time passes the serpent man would slowly exert his influence over the soldiers. 
• The investigators may note the gradual changes in their behaviour with unease, but unless they provoke events the soldiers do not fully become the pawns of Karnassh as scripted as the investigators approach the temple. 
• In the interim Vorsinnish has been trying to locate the remaining wards with a clutch of serpent hounds (allowing for an additional combat encounter in the jungle and for the investigators to retrieve the serpent map). 

This reasonably significant re-structuring of the scenario may lead you to conclude that I believe that the opening chapter is fundamentally flawed – that’s not the case at all. 

The chapter is perfectly serviceable as written, and if your investigators are playing action-oriented types who just want to be pointed in the direction of danger, and who wouldn’t bother with the motivations of the NPC’s anyway, then I wouldn’t suggest that these changes are necessary at all. But if you have investigators who are likely to be interested in the wider story, the motivations of NPC's and who may want to spend time roleplaying in the camp then I think these changes will provide a more fulfilling experience.

The remaining sections of the scenario; the wards and the temple are excellent. The mix of monsters and traps is likely to lead to some thoroughly entertaining scenes that really plays up the strengths of Pulp over vanilla Call of Cthulhu. The only challenge may be in ensuring that the characters actually retrieve Tyranissh without simply dispatching her as another ‘snake-monster’. Here, again, having stressed to one of the characters the importance of retrieving her intact from the temple in advance of the scenario starting, may tip the balance in favour of completing the mission as intended.

What works:

• The setting is unique and interesting, and the plot (while simple) has a nice increasing action tempo
• Beginning the game in-media res lets the investigators jump right into the action
• Temples, traps and monsters are a great way to showcase the Pulp genre and are likely to make for a really entertaining time 

What could have been better:

• The initial link from opening scene to chapter plot is a little tenuous 
• Not exploring the setting in more detail feels like a missed opportunity 
• The role and motivations of the soldiers could have been used to better effect 

Overall, this is a solid opening chapter that is likely to prove entertaining and really get the players in the right mindset for the escalating action of the rest of the campaign. It conveys the key themes of the campaign (the enemy within, ancient civilisations, lots of snakes and monsters) in a clever way that’s woven into the action. At the end of the session the players may wonder if it’s possible to top this heady mix of action and adventure – but rest assured, the campaign is up to the challenge.

Pulp Cthulhu

It's been a while since I posted here, but now it's time to blow off the dust and add some new content.  As I posted back in December, we spent the first part of the year playing through The Enemy Within campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition. It had it's high points, some neat set pieces and more than a few problems, but overall it was a fun time.

Now we've returned to Call of Cthulhu, or more specifically (the ENnie Award Winning)  Pulp Cthulhu to play through the Two Headed Serpent Campaign.  I'll shortly begin a chapter by chapter review, as I did with Horror on the Orient Express.

Before I get into it, I thought I might start with a few reflections on Pulp Cthulhu itself.  First, the obvious - it's a beautiful book, brimming with content and ideas.  A worthy purchase for any Keeper, even if Pulp isn't to your taste.

At a more detailed look, Pulp Cthulhu sells itself thus:


"Tired of your investigators dying in quick succession when jaunting around the world in a desperate bid to save humanity? Wishing that sometimes your investigator could make a stand instead of hiding and waiting for the eldritch horror to pass? Pulp Cthulhu ups the ante and provides you with tougher, more capable heroes—ready to take on the villainous machinations of the Cthulhu Mythos!"

In my view, the core Call of Cthulhu System is focussed on investigation and sanity mechanics.  Other things, like combat, are serviceable but not really intended to be the meat of the game-playing experience.  To meet the pitch set out above, Pulp Cthulhu imports a point-spend mechanic, using the Luck system from the 7th Edition Rules with a suite of new options and significantly increasing Luck accrual between sessions.  

This means that, for every skill based roll of the game, players must decide whether to spend points to increase their result, knowing that they will have their Luck Pool replenished to some extent at the end of the session.  So long as players keep 30 Luck in their pool, the are guaranteed that their investigator will survive certain death.

As a mechanic, the 'Luck economy' it works well because it puts the decision making in the hands of the players, allowing them to decide where their characters will enjoy ridiculous success or survive certain death.  The only criticism that I'd make is that the calculation aspect encourages players to muse different possibilities and can break the flow of narration and is somewhat at odds to the free-flowing style you might typically associate with epic pulp combat.

There are a variety of other innovations, and a 'pulp-o-meter' which allows the Keeper to tune the options to their pulp preference - and that's great.  I recommend the ever-quality Reviews from R'lyeh post if you'd like further information.

But I want to pick up on something else, that I'll raise again in relation to my review of the campaign.  That's the tension between the pulp and investigation themes.  The origins of pulp are about 'lurid, sensationalist and exploitative" tales.  In many cases they more closely resemble a superhero story, than a police procedural.

The question for me is; in an investigative game should pulp scenarios be necessarily more simplistic than non-pulp scenarios?  Each of the four scenarios included in the Pulp Cthulhu book have a decent investigative component, but only one of them is a sandbox, where the investigators have full freedom of movement.

I can understand the temptation of streamlining the scenario to an extent, as it allows the Keeper to dictate the pace and limits the scope of the characters to engage with things that aren't relevant to the scenario - but the luck economy means that many of the frustrations of typical Cthulhu investigations are not a factor for Pulp Cthulhu.  Or, put another way, if I really want to play a primarily action rather than investigative outing, is Pulp Cthulhu actually the best system for this?

This is a theme I'll touch on again, in the context of the Two-Headed Serpent, a 'globe-spanning' campaign which presents an ambitious plot set in a variety of interesting locations.  Stay tuned for chapter one.

A Small But Vicious Dog

Over the last few months we've been exploring the world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (3rd edition) from Fantasy Flight Games.  Described by the publisher as: "an new, exciting way to experience the popular Warhammer Fantasy setting... a grim world, constantly at war", I think WFRP 3e is an important game, albeit an imperfect one.  The following text contains my reflections of the game thus far.

Why WFRP?
There are many, many fantasy games on the market, so why does Warhammer have enduring appeal?  For me the answer is in several parts.  One part is nostalgia. For anyone who played the Warhammer Fantasy Battle, or earlier editions of the roleplaying game, WFRP is a familiar, well resolved, interesting fantasy setting, that contains most typical fantasy tropes alongside some tongue-in-cheek humour.

The second major appeal of the game has always been the idea that instead of playing a fledgling hero, you play a character just trying to get by.  Careers like Rat Catcher or Servant are the norm, and darkness is everywhere.  Perhaps the characters will survive the adventure and prosper, but they may simply end up mutilated, mentally scarred or diseased, trying desperately to get into a more respectable career.  If you favour a dark fantasy game, WFRP has always been a good choice.

Finally the game has always been well supported with a large range of sourcebooks and scenarios.  Some classic campaigns, like The Enemy Within are considered classics and extremely innovative for their time.

Pick a card, any card
The most striking difference between the 3rd edition of WFRP and it's predecessors, is the use of cards.  The bespoke card decks are used for the entirety of the options available to players during combat, reflecting wounds, insanities, diseases, madness, mutation, monsters and even in-game locations.

The cards are neat.  They take a lot of the load from the GM to manage the rules for the players, and make clear the potential outcomes for most results.  On the down side, the cards take up a lot of space during the game, and require careful management between sessions to prevent hours of searching later, and make second hand versions of the game a touch-and-go option.

It should be noted that, toward the end of the license, Fantasy Flight published a series of books which enable the game to be played without many of the cards previously required, and allowed players to plan career development at a glance (rather than scouring endless card decks).  The utility of these books make them an important addition to the smooth operation of the game.

Other innovations
There are several other neat elements of WFRP 3e.  The game is practically bursting with little innovations, such as the stance tracker, which tracks whether a character is more conservative or aggressive and allows you to swap dice in your pool accordingly, social combat rules, a descriptive range tracker, and overall party tension measure.  And of course, the special dice which so polarised gamers when the game was released.

Although many of these elements are not smoothly integrated, they are extremely innovative for a traditional system with such a long history.  For these reasons I think the game is important in the history of roleplaying game design, and many have been influential on subsequent designs.

Quirks and peculiarities
WFRP 3e is not without some eyebrow raising limitations.  For example, High Elves are included as a core character race, but widely marginalised in the settings for most of the scenarios written for the game.  In addition, no elf expansion was ever made limiting elf-specific career options.

The game was originally designed for just 4 players with card options to match.  These days this problem is easily resolved by finding the basic card summary online and printing one for each player.

While the materials included in the scenario and expansion boxes are beautiful, there's a criminal shortage of usable maps and the organisation of the scenario books is not always ideal.  Should the card decks become separated from the scenario books they are almost unplayable in some cases.

The party tension meter is a really nice idea, but unless your players are rigorous in staying in character, most bickering around a game table happens 'out-of-character' and punishing players for bickering in character actually works against a richer, more fully realised, game.

The bespoke dice mechanic is a nice way of randomising several possible outcomes in a single throw, but dice outcome cancelling each other out, means bigger pools (as the character advance their careers) complicate the resolution of this mechanic without any additional benefit.

Freeing careers from a tree-progression system and allowing an almost unlimited ability to pick up new cards means that players have a lot more options in terms of character development, but this also means players face a bewildering array of choices, especially when they start playing the game.

In summary
WFRP 3e is an eccentric game.  It is bursting full of ideas and neat tricks, but much of the way these work together at the table feels unfinished, and doesn't live up to their full potential.  Indeed, you might say that Fantasy Flight refined the system when it made Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and again for Genesys.

If you like the setting, and can get past the challenges inherent in the game collateral (bespoke dice and large numbers of cards) you'll find a surprising accessible system, that delivers a solid gaming experience, particularly for early-career characters.

Reports from the Orient Express - The Final Analysis

Horror on the Orient Express is generally considered to be one of the best horror roleplaying campaigns of all time.  It is often grouped with the ‘big three’ a list of epic Call of Cthulhu campaigns that include Masks of Nyarlathotep and Beyond the Mountains of Madness. 

The original Horror on the Orient Express campaign won the Origins award for Best Role Playing Adventure in 1991, while the revised edition picked up the Gold ENnie Award for Best Adventure in 2015.  It currently has a 4.5/5 rating on DriveThruRPG, 6.95/10 on RPG.net and 8.47/10 on RPGGeek.com.

In the following post I conclude my lengthy review of this campaign.  Spoilers follow, so don’t read on if you ever plan to play in this classic Call of Cthulhu campaign.

Background 

In 2012, Chaosium turned to Kickstarter choosing “a re-imagining of the iconic Horror on the Orient Express, originally released by Chaosium in 1991”.  This was the Chaosium's first kickstarter offering,  promising delivery in 2013, and setting the revised campaign up as the first campaign for a new 7th edition of its classic Call of Cthulhu ruleset.  

A writers blog tracked the progress behind the scenes and provides an interesting insight into the process of constructing this product.

Ultimately the ambitious revision of Horror on the Orient Express proved to be one of the two projects that led Chaosium to kickstarter itself to death, leading to a significant change in the management of the company and final delivery of PDFs in 2014 and printed products in mid 2015.

Common Themes

Across the chapter reviews I make two consistent criticisms of Horror on the Orient Express, first that there remains a degree of railroading that unnecessarily removes player agency in some pivotal scenes.  Second, that the campaign material is insufficient for the scope of its ambition and places an unnecessarily high burden on the Keeper to invent or improvise material on the fly to keep the game flowing smoothly.

Because of the consistency of these themes, I thought it would be worth taking a look at the context, historic and contemporary, for these elements.  When Horror on the Orient Express was first published, Call of Cthulhu was in its 4th edition, so that rulebook seems a good place to start.

"Call of Cthulhu should not be a rigidly set game experience.  The keeper should have firm control over what is happening, though he should remain flexible and capable of adapting to the changing circumstances of his players' plans and abilities.  A good keeper always will modify his original plan to accommodate his players.  While Call of Cthulhu requires the use of scenarios, this does not mean that the scenario cannot be changed by an imaginative keeper. 

A keeper for Call of Cthulhu thus must be creative and flexible.  He should have a strong sense or the mysterious and horrifying, and should be fairly articulate as well, possessing the ability to describe well.  Call of Cthulhu is perhaps more demanding than other games in its requirements for a keeper, but that is a function both of the nature of the game and its desire to maximise the pleasure of playing it." -Call of Cthulhu 4th edition (1989) p.90

So while the idea of flexibility is clearly established, the burden is squarely placed on the Keeper, who must bear responsibility for improvising to serve the demands of the game.  This is consistent with how the 1991 edition of Horror on the Orient Express approaches the role of Keeper.

The problem with this attitude is that the enjoyment of the players is likely to be hugely varied depending on the experience, disposition and temperament of the Keeper.  Players who become frustrated or disengaged from the game are likely to quit, and form a negative view both of the campaign and of Call of Cthulhu (and perhaps of roleplaying in general).  You don’t need to go far to find accounts of horror on the Orient Express where the campaign has stalled, or even derailed in the early chapters.

Modern publications often identify this risk and suggest that  investigators have more agency in resolving scenarios and that the process be collaborative.  Consider this guidance from the most recent edition of the rules, some 26 years later:

"Most players, as they become more familiar with the game and confident in their investigators, will want to diverge from the linear scenario. Rather than follow the obvious clues laid out for them by the Keeper, they will want to follow up a different clue or even come up with a line of enquiry entirely of their own devising.

Suddenly the adventure is sidetracked and the Keeper may be tempted to contrive something to get the story back on its intended track rather than go where the players are heading. If the players are compelled back to the Keeper’s prepared plot, they will come to feel that their contribution is of little value and that they are simply following a preordained story rather than creating their own. is means that it’s time to look at running scenarios in a non-linear way...

Non-linear adventures give the player's choice in how to proceed.  Every fact that  expected things will happen because of the players’ choices makes for a more exciting game for everyone—the Keeper included. In this sense, the story really does become a collaboration between the Keeper and players" -Call of Cthulhu 7th edition (2015) p.217

This begs the question: just how much has a campaign like Horror on the Orient Express shifted to reflect the two decade advance in gaming theory and practice?

In reviewing this campaign I have taken the approach of how the game would play for an inexperienced or time-poor Keeper, and reviewed each chapter against a best-practice standard, where the Keeper is well supported, the scenario allows several options for resolution and the investigators have a degree of agency.

The Final Analysis

You can read my individual reviews of each chapter of the campaign following the links below.  Overall, the revised Horror on the Orient Express retains much of the charm, and a few of the problems, of its predecessor.  In my assessment:

• The handouts for this campaign are abundant and beautiful, although there are a few noticeable omissions; for example, a reference sheet to track the baleful influence of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, summary sheets of key NPCs to allow keepers to set skill difficulty levels at and allow combat to be more easily resolved without paging back and forth through the book, and flowcharts showing how the clues link to key scenes.
• The new text significantly improves the older material, particularly the inclusion of clearly signposted options for when the plot may become derailed, and the addition of more options and flexibility at several points in the campaign, particularly in the final scenes.
• All of the new scenarios add something unique and interesting to the campaign.  They are well worth the time invested, although many are pitched with more of an action focus, which may be a refreshing change for some groups, and not to the taste of others.
• Despite these improvements, there are still some chapters which deprive the investigators of agency and which are resolved entirely as a set-piece with player input confined or ignored.
• In addition, several sequences throughout the campaign place a heavy load on the Keeper, whether through extensive monologue or description, or managing a large cast of NPCs.
• There are also missed opportunities to include material that would help the Keeper to better evoke the setting and improvise action (for example detailed rules to support action sequences aboard the train) .
• The ending of the campaign is still problematic, and while an option has been provided to allow for an alternative resolution, this is not smoothly integrated into the original material, meaning the players may miss some of the highlights of the original campaign.
• These elements significantly detract from the playability of the campaign and make it a poor choice for an inexperienced or time-poor keeper.

The original Horror on the Orient Express campaign was always going to be renovated, rather than subject to wholesale change, and in that regard the authors have wholly succeeded.  The revised campaign retains much of its original charm, including some of the most memorable horror scenes in roleplaying, while also improving the playability of the more problematic elements. 

The new scenarios are great, and add some interesting back-story linked to the campaign, while also offering a slightly different style and approach supported by pre-generated characters.  This allows for a much longer run of the campaign, while also giving Keepers the option of running each scenario as a stand-alone offering.

However, In my view, rather than commission new scenarios to extend the campaign, the authors should first have commissioned a Keepers Guide to Horror on the Orient Express to address the shortcomings above.  I suggest that this would have made the campaign accessible to a wider audience and improved the overall experience for many of those purchasing this epic campaign.   

Horror on the Orient Express was already longer than many other similar products, and while as a backer I certainly appreciated all the new material offered during the kickstarter in 2012, I would have preferred the foundations of the campaign were more thoroughly strengthened, improved and supplemented with additional material, before new additions made to further extend the campaign.

A good example of this can be seen in another epic Call of Cthulhu campaign, The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep, where a third party companion was kickstarted by Sixtystone Press following a deluxe reprint of the original campaign by Chaosium in 2010. 

Perhaps, one day, the same thing will happen for Horror on the Orient Express, although I fear the  aura of extravagance and luxury associated with this product, while appropriately synonymous with the train upon which this campaign is based, has also become something of a symbol of publisher overreach and failure, making any future publisher extremely cautious about further investment in products bearing this name, and crowd-funding especially.

Individual Chapter Reviews:
The Blood Red Fez
Overview & London
Paris
Lausanne
Milan
Venice

Constantinople (1204)
Trieste
Dream Zagreb
Constantinople (330)
Vinkovci
Belgrade
Sofia
Constantinople (1923)
Across Europe
London Again & The Dreamlands Express
Istanbul (2013)

Book your tickets with care

So, if you’ve read this review and you plan to press ahead and run the campaign for your group, here are my recommendations to improve the experience.

The first thing I recommend for any Keeper planning to run this campaign is an open discussion with all the players about what kind of game the group want to play.  Ideally this would cover the focus, turnover and duration of the commitment.

Focus

If you run this as written, the campaign is a primarily investigative outing, where following clues is the main activity (whereas I would describe Masks of Nyarlathotep as primarily an action-adventure outing and Beyond the Mountains of Madness as primarily about exploration).  So it’s a good idea to make sure that the group are happy to play a lengthy campaign where they will be sifting through clues, keeping notes and interviewing NPCs on a regular basis.

Turnover

Next, you might want to discuss what level of investigator turnover the group would enjoy.  As scripted, each player is likely to go through something like 1-3 characters through the course of the campaign (not counting the pre-generated characters).  If this is the style of game the group wants to play, then it makes sense to discuss options for investigator contingency, and perhaps even create some back-up characters at the outset who have a plausible reason for joining the hunt for the simulacrum (as suggested in the campaign book I).

If your group is more interested in exploring the development of the characters across the entire course of the campaign, then you probably need to provide a means to boost their chances of survival (for example, give each character a ‘Mark of Destiny’ that they can expend to survive a fatal outcome, and add one more of these at each step where characters are likely to perish (the Doom Train, Sofia etc.)  In addition you should employ the optional Luck rules to allow the investigators to manipulate their chances of success at key moments, and roll luck at the end of each game session.

Duration

The campaign is long and the full campaign is very long.  It took our group 35 three hour sessions to play end-to-end averaging 2-3 sessions per chapter.  For some groups a six month run can be a long time, so be sure to tailor your experience to the availability of the players.  The new, optional scenarios are an easy option for removal if time is pressing.  You could probably also remove Milan, Dream Zagreb and conclude the campaign in Constantinople using the optional ending to abridge it further.

Out of the Box

The box set contains a great many wonderful components, but here are some other things I prepared for my run in order to enhance the game experience:

• Enlarge, print and laminate the maps for each city and put these on the table each session that the investigators are in that city to help everyone understand the geography and better evoke the place.
• Create character sheets for the pre-generated characters in each of the ‘other era’ scenarios using the auto-calculation character sheets (available free from Chaosium).
• Create small-size portraits for each major NPC who features in the game, using the pictures in the PDF, supplemented by online photos.  These are a useful way for players to track the NPC’s and invaluable in each of the ‘murder on the train’ scenarios.
• Create a soundtrack for each chapter.  These days wireless technology makes creating and switching between looping playlists, and playing through portable speakers, extremely easy and unlikely to distract the keeper.  In addition to music of the era appropriate to each part of Europe I added a train effects track, and some horror and action playlists for the climax of each chapter.
• Create a clearfile or folder with all the handouts you need to provide to the Investigators.  Create a second clearfile or folder for the investigators with backups of their character  sheets (in case of forgetful players), dreamlands character sheets and space for the players to preserve all the handouts and refer to them at the table
• Get some miniatures (or counters from a board-game),  to track the investigators relative locations when on the Orient Express using the provided train handouts. This helps ensure that the players mental image of their investigators location matches that of the Keeper.

With all that said, it’s time to disembark from the review, and exit via the platform (mind the gap).  Thanks for your interest, and all the best with your own Horror on the Orient Express campaign experience.

Some key stats from this journey:

Words in this review: 27,925

Sessions taken to run the campaign: 35

Months taken to run the campaign: 20

Players participating in the campaign: 7

Investigators Missing In Action: 1

Investigators Killed in Action: 1

Investigators Indefinitely Insane: 1

Players favourite chapter: Constantinople (330), Venice a close second
Keepers favourite chapter: Venice

Reports from the Orient Express - Istanbul 2013

This is a review of the Istanbul 2013 chapter of the revised Call of Cthulhu campaign Horror on the Orient Express (Chaosium: 2014) based on actual play.  I intend to review each chapter of this venerable campaign as we play through it, highlighting what I see as strengths and weaknesses, and providing some suggestions along the way for what I’d do differently if running it again.  Spoilers follow, so don’t read on if you ever plan to play in this classic Call of Cthulhu campaign.

The Simulacrum Unbound

This modern day scenario allows the players a chance to create new characters, then relive some of the highlights of their previous investigators time aboard the Orient Express.  They must also escape a strange pocket dimension, unmask the villain and defeat their evil plans.

This is an optional modern era (2013) scenario that is a nice way to conclude the extended Horror on the Orient Express campaign, allowing the players access to more familiar technologies and European politics, while maintaining much of the charm of the 1920’s era Orient Express (the train cars after all have been lovingly restored).

However, it is surprising that no pre-generated characters are offered for this scenario, despite the fact that pre-generated characters have been supplied for all of the other supplementary scenarios set in other eras (Invictus, Dark Ages & Gaslight).  Although one of the characters must be related to the original investigators (a nice touch) there seems to be no real reason to miss this detail.  Happily almost any kind of investigator can be created for the modern scenario, as all have won a prize as part of the launch of a new online travel site lux-vista.com.

The scenario is divided into three parts.  In the first part the investigators arrive, mingle with the other passengers and engage in some sightseeing.  This is a good opportunity for the Keeper to help introduce the large cast of 15 NPCs, particularly those who are also competition winners, and soon to become victims.

For no good reason I can see the NPCs are overwhelmingly (80%) male with no female NPCs among the contest winners (a similar ratio to Blue Train, Black Night, while by contrast, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express - written after the author had recently completed a journey on the Orient Express - has only 54% male suspects) . 

As with the other murder on the train scenarios the background information and plots provided for the NPCs are probably sufficient for much of this part of the scenario, but considerably lacking in terms of helping the Keeper portray how each NPC reacts in the next part of the scenario.

The number independent plots to keep the investigators interested, and throw suspicion on the other passengers, are sparse.  Presumably this is because half of the NPCs on the train have been selected at random, and therefore don’t know each other, nor have not planned in advance for the trip.   While a identity theft and celebrity stalking are interesting, modern-day, storylines neither seem likely to seriously shift suspicion from Milton, the architect of the competition, and man responsible for the presence of the investigators aboard the Orient Express.

The second part of the scenario takes the investigators to a strange pocket dimension,

where they find that they are stranded.  Attempts to leave the train are halted by the mysterious faceless soldiers.  Meanwhile, strange fragments of the past revisit the contemporary passengers of the Orient Express.  This is a fantastic device, which allows the group to remember and revisit some of the highlights of the campaign.  This should prove a great epilogue to the campaign, as Fenalik or the Jigsaw Prince return once more to (briefly) terrify the investigators.  Keepers can also present the investigators from the original campaign and confront the players with their own impressions of them .

The problem here is that the scenario works against itself.  In order for the players to gather the necessary clues to unmask the murderer, and thereby return to their own dimension, the other passengers must be murdered.  However, as soon as the investigators realise that one of their number is trying to kill them off, one by one, its highly likely they will take steps to prevent that from happening (ensuring that the NPCs remain together for example). Consider Murder on the Orient Express where Hercule Poirot sensibly takes the precaution of quarantining all the passengers to the restaurant car while he conducts his inquiries.

This means that to advance the plot, the Keeper must actively subvert or prevent the investigators from achieving this aim for long enough to allow the subsequent murders to occur, despite the fact that only one NPC has a motive for wanting this to occur.   If the Keeper applies a heavy hand, the game may devolve into a series of arguments between NPCs and investigators.  If the Keeper is more deft in their handling, having the NPCs repeatedly flee or take refuge in their own rooms when the fragmentary events  occur (like blackshirts boarding the train, or Fenalik appearing) then this may be more persistent frustration than outright vexation.

I suggest that this plot would work more smoothly if the other NPCs had both a reason to be secretive, and appear suspicious.  Thus, the investigators will have a challenging time corralling them to remain together and working out who the murderer is.  For example, possible back stories could include:

• an addiction
• a con artist
• an affair
• an art thief
• suicidal tendencies
• an undercover cop etc. etc.

Although less realistic than the NPCs presented in the scenario, I suggest this would work better to support the aim of the scenario; to permit the murders to occur over the following days.  A less extreme option is to change the identity of the murderer.

Instead of John Milton, it is Dr Fabian Wyss, the Swiss Plastic Surgeon who uncovered the story of the simulacrum while researching skin grafting in the early 20th Century and formulated the insane plan to create the meat simulacrum.  An angel investor to a range of internet start-ups Wyss invests in Lux-Vista and convinces Milton to arrange the competition and invite the competition winners, including the investigators.

This allows the investigators to suspect Milton early on without derailing the scenario, and Wyss to fame Milton if he's in danger of being discovered.  In addition Wyss might reasonably have more access to the train and passengers as the only medical doctor, and be more likely to be trusted by the investigators (as a reliable source of First Aid, and the person who can help with post-mortem examination).  

Milton never actually met Wyss, all investment and communication occurring through a solicitor - so he can plead his innocence if confronted, but not reveal Wyss' identity beyond saying he was encouraged to arrange the trip by his wealthy European angel investor.

The third part of the scenario, a final showdown, is dependant on Milton fulfilling his plan and opening a Gate to the now derelict Shunned Mosque, where he has assembled the meat simulacrum, in grisly parody of Selim's actions almost a century earlier.

The question of how things resolve depends a lot on how the investigators interact during the first part of the scenario.  On one level, they have no reason to trust each other more than any other passenger and no particular motivation to investigate the mystery beyond needing to get home.  There is no shared history or reason to work together.  On the other hand the players have probably just spent months, if not years, playing investigators who have risked life and sanity together; so unless the players make a conscious effort in their play, they are likely to fall back into the familiar groove that got them through Blue Train, Black Night and quickly regroup.

If they work together, they have every chance of ending the scenario on their own terms, even before the final act.  The villain is dangerous individually, but not overwhelming when facing a group.  If they act in isolation, or are hesitant to get involved, the villain has every chance to fulfil their plan, and claim several investigators lives along the way.

PROS

• The idea of introducing flashbacks form the core campaign, that the players can interact with, is genius and a great way to finish the full campaign experience. 
• The setting and plot are imaginative and interesting.
• The scenario is flexible about resolution.
• The fold out carriage maps really shine in this scenario.

CONS

• Roleplaying the large cast of NPCs is challenging and the Keeper is likely to need to improvise once initial material is exhausted
• There are few other plausible suspects beyond the villain.
• To be completed as written, the Keeper must actively seek to frustrate investigator efforts to protect the other passengers.
• There are no pre-generated characters.

In summary, despite trapping the investigators, this scenario largely allows the investigators to resolve things on their own terms.  As an epilogue to the main campaign it offers a great way to relive some of the highlights of the past chapters, while also presenting a fresh and interesting twist on the original story.

Other parts of this review:
The Blood Red Fez
Overview & London
Paris
Lausanne
Milan
Venice

Constantinople (1204)
Trieste
Dream Zagreb
Constantinople (330)
Vinkovci
Belgrade
Sofia
Constantinople (1923)
Across Europe
London Again & The Dreamlands Express
Istanbul (2013)
The Final Analysis